Invincible Tiger The Legend of Han Tao Review

With a name as asian as Han Tao, you would assume this game must be about some karate chopping master sensei on his quest to kick ass, and for the most part that’s what it is. Except the character you play is not really that cool, because he’s supposed to be some sort of retired fighter or something, and he gets thrust back into combat for some reason I couldn’t quite grasp. Unfortunately with a set up this generic, you already know what this game is going to be. A mediocre Chinese beat-em up that plays heavily on stilted, re-used stereotypes.

The combat is complete button-mash on the X and Y buttons, with a dodge mechanic placed on the right stick that just lets you duck to avoid high moves, or jump up to avoid low moves. The combat is boring and gets repetitive very quickly. It’s also decently difficult. I died on the second stage numerous times. The game wants you to pull enemies away from each other and try to single them out to beat them, which works to be sure, but I definitely don’t feel like a badass when I’m running away from two guys. And in the end, that is what button mashers are all about – making the player feel powerful. Invincible Tiger utterly fails to do that.

The story is a cookie cutter karate tale (complete with old sounding Asian guy voiceover) that was so boring and un-interesting to me, I couldn’t even tell you what it was about. Aside from the story, there is also an endurance challenge, as well as some time trial modes. Multiplayer is also included, but nobody was playing the couple times I tried to join a match.

At the ridiculous $15 (1200 MS points) price set for this game, I cannot recommend it to anyone. There are so many better games on the marketplace, it pains me if anyone picks this one over the quality content there is to offer on the Xbox Live Marketplace.